Morbid Romantic

Book Review & Personal Blog

State: Colorado
City: Glenwood Springs

So, more Kansas today. We still had half the state to drive through. I admit that I wasn’t looking forward to it because the previous day had been so boring. I knew that what was waiting for us on the road were more hours of Kansas plains. Nothing but endless green rolling hills. We were all complaining about how absolutely dull it is in Kansas and how much we’re looking forward to being in a different state with, hopefully, more interesting terrain. Like a brave line of caravan going to the front line, we prepared for our trial ahead.

That was just what we got. Prairies and hills until we thought we were going to die of boredom.

Until I saw the perfect chance for us to get off of the road. All along the highway, for about 20 miles, I kept seeing signs for something called Prairie Dog Town in Oakley. They advertised to have all sorts of animals, but more importantly, Prairie Dogs. I’ve only ever seen them on television; this Kansas prairie land has to be good for something. There’s nothing that I love more than hard to find and strange local entertainment. My suggestion to stop was met with a little resistance and grumbling, but all it took was a sweet reminder by me that stopping would be a good chance to smoke one cigarette after another. This was all that it took to woo the difficult among us…

It was really all we could do to keep from laughing when we walked into this place full of taxidermy projects and strange nick knacks. The place was dirty, cramped and sold stuff that I can’t imagine anyone wanting to buy… like magnetic rocks and fake vomit. I think I saw a couple of eye twitches when we looked at the stuffed two headed calf (I think that’s what it was) and the cage of real rattlesnakes, but definitely when I pointed out the stuffed Jackalope. I wish that I got some pictures of the inside shop because it was like something out of a movie.

My mood was a little soured by “spoiled sport” when it was brought to my attention that the animals kept there are probably bred, fed and then killed to make things like purses or shoes or fur goods. I didn’t want to admit it, but I think it’s probably true. The owner boasted that he and his wife caught over 1,000 rattlesnakes that year. There definitely weren’t 1,000 rattlesnakes in their little snake cage, so I can only imagine what the fates of those others snakes were. Poor things. All of those poor furry creatures.

Prairie Dog Town was a strange place. The first thing you notice is all of these holes in the ground, but that’s all they were when we walked out. Then all of a sudden, BAM, we’re surrounded by prairie dogs coming out of their holes and watching us or scurrying about. They were soooo cute, but those sharp nails that they have to dig around in the dirt with were hardcore. There were also piggies and Kit Foxes and Coyote and a BIG rabbit that I am sure is going to make a good fur coat one day. Still, thanks to Jerk, I couldn’t help but feel guilty at every animal that I cooed at because I was encouraging their imprisonment, I was part of the problem and not the solution. Because of people like me, this guy keeps animals, makes money off of them, kills them, sells their skin and makes even more money from them post-humorously.

It was a good thing that we stopped because I would have gone insane otherwise. There was still so much more Kansas to go. By the time we hit the Colorado border, I sighed with relief. FINALLY, something different. My relief soon turned to horror when we began to go up and down the high peaks of the Rocky Mountains. The Blue Ridge in Virginia have nothing on the Rockies, no joke. My ears were popping like crazy and I kept seeing signs like, “runaway truck ramp two miles,” which only made a bad situation worse. Runaway truck ramps!? There were those warning signs every seven miles, which led me to the startling and stomach turning realization that trucks must lose their breaks a lot on the Rockies.

What made it worse!? We actually drove through a snow/sleet mixture. Out of nowhere, hard pieces of sleet start to splatter on the windshield.

If Kansas is the boring state, Colorado is the terrifying state. I honestly don’t get how people could speed and go 80+ miles an hour on those winding, high mountain roads. I could never be a trucker, hugging those turns with a massive vehicle set to run out of control or roll off the edge thousands of feet.

For my sanity, I kept my eyes on the road ahead and the mountains above. I didn’t want to start looking around below at the cliffs because then all of my fear would hit me and it would be over for me. The best thing for me was pretending as if I were on solid ground like any other driving experience. I sure do miss sea level where the worst we get is an overpass here or there. But if anything good came out of my near death experience over the Rockies, it’s that I am totally flying when I come out to Utah to visit my mother. No more of this driving for five days thing.

The Rockies takes its toll on everyone and we settle in a city called Glenwood Springs. It appears to be a small ski resort area, which makes sense because we are in the Rockies and close to Aspen. Everything was packed in real close together, like a mini city squished in between high, tremendous mountains. Seriously, we were circled in by mountains and all we needed was within walking distance.

Our hotel was the Starlight Lodge, which had a stuffed bear in the lobby and fake flowers everywhere. Across the way was some place called the Village Inn. The Village Inn was a restaurant. Since it was the closest thing to our small lodge, right across the street in fact, we went there for dinner. My stomach was in an absolute fury after the ride, so I was delighted to see that they had a half portion menu on the back, which was where I got my dinner from. The three ounces of steak, half a baked potato and corn was enough for me, plus the salad and half slice of pie that came with it.

Completely famished but refreshed and enlivened by our meal, we retired to our rooms and watched HBO until we passed out.